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April 04, 2011

As many understand, much scientific research is limited by the cultural model in which researcher's jealously guard their data. The vast gene study of Alzheimer's, reported in yesterday's NYTimes, would not have been possible without the footwork of Dr. Schellenberg. Thus, the quote:

Schellenberg, a pathology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, got what he wanted: nearly every Alzheimer's center and Alzheimer's geneticist in the country cooperated. The scientists were able to analyze the genes of more than 50,000 people in the US and Europe. They now have intriguing clues to why Alz strikes and how it progresses.

In a previous post, I argued from a huge body of research that being nice to people is not enough. You've also got to be competent. Obviously, Schellenberg is both nice and exceedingly competent, the real keys to his success.

The study showed, with a very strong level of research, that there are 10 genes involved in Alzheimer's.

It is known that one of the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease is an accumulation of beta amyloid, or a-beta, a protein that forms plaques. And it is known that later in the disease, twisted and tangled proteins — tau — appear in dead and dying nerve cells.

But what is not known is why a-beta starts to accrue, why the brains of people with Alzheimer’s cannot get rid of its excess, or what is the link between amyloid and tau.

As Schellenberg concludes, We are pretty sure more stuff will pop out.

March 29, 2011

Two policy-related issues over the last decade have gotten a lot of press: climate-change, and more recently, economic inequality. Taking these issues seriously requires governmental policy and tax changes. Publicly, congress' head is in the sand, but privately, many Republicans and Democrats take the problems seriously.

What's intriguing to me is how vociferous the anti-climate change and anti-inequality forces have become. If you read closely, you'll note that the issues are tied closely to the anti-tax movement. Still, to paraphrase Artemus Ward, the 19th century humorist: It ain't so much the things (we) don't know that get (us) into trouble. It's the things (we) know that just ain't so.

For example, we now know that more than 95% of scientists agree that humanity has impacted climate to the point where unless we make changes in industry and life-style, long term this planet is in trouble--that includes our children and grandchildren. The scientific issue is actually settled. The question is whether congress and the public will want to do anything constructive about it.

The more recent hullabaloo has been over whether or not the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. Government programs can and do reduce inequality. Indeed, there's a great deal that can be done to reduce inequality.

However, there's a noisy band of American inequality deniers who are trying to convince us that the rich aren't getting richer, nor are the poor getting poorer. In a spirited rejoinder to the issue, Jay Coggins, an applied economist at the University of Minnesota wrote commentary on the issue in today's Star Tribune.

Coggins' thesis is clear and direct:

Economists, a famously contentious bunch, disagree about many things. On the question of economic inequality, though, they disagree hardly at all: American inequality is high and rising.

Economists, Coggins relates, use three main tools to study inequality: measurement of poverty, compute the Gini coefficient (which measures inequality for all of us), and compare the income or wealth of the rich and very rich to the rest of us. On all three measures, the stats are grim, shockingly so.

For a Gen-Yer looking to the future, the potential can be grim: one person out of 30 can expect to move from anywhere in the bottom 40% to anywhere into the top 20% in the next 10 years.

One of my coffee cronies, a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, retired vice-president from Deluxe Check Corp, the multi-billion dollar firm, called my attention to the article. Even he thought the consequences and future for the younger generations are grim unless government and his tribe of Republicans make some significant policy changes.

Hope you'll read the article. It's scary. Coggins also explains how the inequality deniers come up with their ideas. And, oh yeah, Coggins' stats are correct and so is his conclusion. The rich are definitely getting richer, and the poor (and the middle class) are definitely getting poorer.

March 09, 2011

Research by scholars in New Jersey and North Carolina reports that one additional Wal-Mart Supercenter per 100,000 residents increases individual's probability of being obese by 2.3 percentage points.

Harvard Business Review blogs chose to highlight the report from the Journal of Urban Economics. Interesting that a capitalist tool like HBR would document the report.

The study implies that proliferation of food at highly discounted prices, explains 10.5% of the U.S. rise in obesity since the late 1980s.

In looking at the research data I noticed a couple other intriguing conclusions. The research found that the progress in retail logistics translated to substantial reductions in the prices of food and other consumer goods. (I assume my readers are aware that Wal-Mart is the logistics god of the universe, and that the firm first developed logistics as a fundamental competitive advantage.) The authors used data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) which tracked rates of obesity in various states. They matched the data with Walmart Supercenter entry dates and locations, and examined the effect of Supercenters on body mass index (BMI).

Another of the more intriguing conclusions is that the resulting increase in medical expenditures offsets only a small portion of consumers' savings from shopping at Supercenters.

October 29, 2010

Just how much impact does money have on an election? There's been a lot thrown around for this election. I weighed in on the Supreme Court's recent money fiasco in Mocking the Supreme Court decision on election finance. However, David Brook's analysis of campaign spending and its influence on elections brings a different perspective on the role of money. Brooks' research found that Democrats, most of whom are incumbents have been "raising and spending far more than the Republicans." Despite their largesse, the Democrats have been sinking in the polls. Brooks' conclusion is that the advertisement buys just don't make that much difference.

Political scientists have studied campaign spending for years, Brooks says, and found that campaign spending has no outsize role on the election--in spite of what candidates, the consultants and the political press imagine.

There are numerous situations in which money seems to have made no impact whatsoever. As Brooks points out, when Phil Gramm and John Connally ran for president, money just didn't make much difference. In 2006, Republican incumbents raised over $100 million more than Democrats, but still lost the election. Today's NYTimes has an article about Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina's financial investment. Whitman and Fiorina have put in far more money than their Democratic rivals, yet it seems to no avail. In fact, Whitman with all her billions is running 10 points behind Jerry Brown. She will be the third wealthy candidate to lose a major California election. Fiorina is still a bit behind Ms. Boxer.

The most significant media coverage is about the the skyrocketing spending of independent groups. Although Democratic incumbents have raised far more than the their rivals, the spending of independent groups for Republicans far outweighs the Democratic groups. Thanks to the Supreme Court.

Will Karl Rove and all the independent monies reshape the election? I think yes. Brooks says no. Should I trust Brooks' research?

So what do you do when a writers's research findings differ from your gut? Of course, if it's unimportant, you probably ignore the research. But elections are important to me. When the summary of research is a rejection of my gut, my intuition and my emotions--and it's important--I look for more research and another expert. Fortunately, I happen to know another expert, Dr. Phil Shively of the University of Minnesota, who is an expert on US voter behavior and finances.

Here's what Shively had to say about Brooks' rsearch: "Brooks had it right. Generally speaking, beyond some threshold level huge additional amounts of money for a campaign don't make that much difference. Just do a thought experiment--how much effect do you think the last Michelle Bachman ad you saw had on you?" My response to his question? Zip. Nada. Absolutely no effect whatsover. I still wouldn't vote for her if I lived in her district--which I don't. So with both Brooks and Shively in agreement, I've learned something. I was wrong about the Supreme Court's decision. The money from independent sources won't impact an election significantly.

But Shively went on to say something even more important about the money chasing. "The really corrosive effect of the big spending, I think, is the effect it has on public oficials. They can't resist raising as much money as possible, just in case it does make a difference. And that means that they spend much of their time in office chasing donations, and feel beholden to those who have given." So in the final analysis, that's the real issue of importance.

October 16, 2010

The latest issue of Time has a major section on Alzheimer's, its effects and profound misery. Maria Shriver has a family history of Alzheimer's and tomorrow, Sunday the 17th, she'll break her silence even more to discuss with Christiane Amanpour how Alzheimer's effect family members.

Not all experiences of Alzheimer's are sad. Over the last few months my daughters and I have learned to laugh at some of the effects of Alzheimer's on my wife and their mother. We decided a long time ago that when the occasion was pure nonsense and startling we were going to laugh. Although I still walk away from her with a tear in my eye, there are other times that as soon as I leave the residence I laugh out loud, get on the phone and let my daughters laugh with me.

On three occasions, now, it's been part of a morning or evening phone conversation. Typically, I phone my wife in the morning when before she goes for breakfast and then in the evening when before she goes to bed. We'll talk about nothing . . .the weather, the bagel she and I shared one day, or the cranberry oatmeal cookie. Once in a while, when D'Amico happens to have its famous key lime crostata, I grab two and go over to the residence for desert. She loves the crostata, but more, she loves eating it with me. They are such little things, but seemingly so very important. So I talk about them on the phone.

Then, toward the end of the phone conversation, comes this from my wife. "I want to thank you for calling me. It's so very nice. Would you tell your wife how much I appreciate her sharing you with me and how very kind she is? Sometime, I'd like to thank her. Tell her it's very kind of her to let you spend time talking to me."

I used to tell her that she's my wife, but that doesn't work anymore. Now I just say, "I'll be sure to tell her." Then I hang up the phone and laugh out loud, typically calling one of my daughters and telling them that she's done it again. We all laugh. It's their mom and my wife.

On several occasions, unsolicited, people have told me how very "kind" my wife was and how "kind" they remember her being. It's strange. Although I know that she's a kind person, I've never thought of her that way. I always admired her for her intellectual smarts, her love of music, love of me, her children and grandchildren, and ability to teach children, no matter the situation.

It's amazing how even a disease like Alzheimer's can reveal something about a person that you've missed, in spite of the fact that others noticed it. But I know eventually even those conversations will come to an end.

According to an article in today's NYTimes, the National Institutes of Health recently sponsored what amounted to a science court in order to answer one question about Alzheimer's: Is there any way to prevent Alzheimer's? The jury was commissioned to hear all the research evidence about the dread disease. They heard from leading researchers from major institutions around the country. They looked at hundreds of research papers. The studies included nearly every proposal to prevent the disease: exercise, mental stimulation, healthy diet, nutritional supplements, etc. The research presented even included differences in personality traits. The jury concluded that there was no significant research indicating the possibility of Alzheimer's prevention. Thus the comment by Dr. Daviglus.

Still, though there is a vast literature on the disease, the quality of research evidence is very low. Since I've intereacted with leading specialists in the field from the University of Minnesota Med School as well as Mayo Clinic, I'm not at all surprised by the court's conclusion.

To me, one of the suprising insights was that it was not until the mid '80's that scientists realized that Alzheimer's was actually a disease. It was thought to be dementia that was merely a normal part of aging. Of course, the demographics of the boomer generation and the potential for a huge proportion of the population to live much longer, make the disease a high priority.

As my regular readers know, my beloved wife is now in long-term care with Alzheimer's. One of the intriguing facts about the disease is the discomfort so many have in talking about it. But when I broach the subject, then people open up. To some, it's a terrorizing disease. Prior to learning of her mother's diagnosis, my eldest daughter began working part time in development for an Alzheimer's research funding organization in the Boston community. She told me that when she wrote about her mother's diagnosis in a publicity letter for the organization, people started "coming out of the woodworks." They wanted to talk with her because of her knowledge-base, to share their family stories and to learn more about the disease and the research. Recently in a conversation with our youngest daughter, I thought her response, though I might not use the cliche, was most appropriate. In discussing our pain, her comment was . . . well, prosaic: It is what it is, Dad. I'd put it differently. I'd say that to life lived to its fullest has both its credits and its debits.

In February, I wrote a blog on our experience with the disease and my own reflections and commitments. Although I took what many saw as a unique position on the experience, I've been shocked by the size of the response. And no, I haven't changed my attitude toward the disease and life. Here's the posting: My wife's Alzheimer's, The Notebook and my humanity.

April 16, 2010

Sharon Begley, a superb science writer and senior editor of Newsweek, has a recent article on an issue I've been curious about for years: Why scientists are losing the PR wars. Why do Americans, and especially evangelical Americans, ignore and distrust science so much?

In my early years as a minister in Pasadena, Boulder, Colorado, and Flagstaff, I occasionally met people who distrusted science, but the issue didn't seem so widespread then. Part of the reason was that those were college towns and there were a lot of faculty in the congregations. Scientists tend to trust science. But by the mid 1970s a number of the "religious" were gaining attention for their views on (against) evolution. Inevitably, the scientist/physicians caught hell from the anti-abortion movement, and from there the conversation around climate change became more raucous.

Begley offers a number of intriguing reasons for the American rejection of science. Scientists are lousy communicators. They mimic their training and appeal to people's heads, not their guts. So when smarter-than-thou condescension by scientists surfaces in arguments between evolutionary biologists and creationists, the latter almost always win. It's a rare scientist who understands persuasion and can tell good motivational stories.

The statistics against climate science (and other sciences), for example, show there is far less backlash in Europe and Japan. The U.S. is 33rd out of 34 developed countries in the percentage of adults who believe that humans evolved. There really is something peculiarly American about the rejection of science.

Charles Harper, a devout Christian and scientist who ran the program bridging science and faith at the Templeton Foundation thinks he knows why Americans reject science. We Americans are anti-elitist and anti-authoritarian, so when we're told we have "to think in a certain way there is a backlish." And as with climate science and evolution, we refuse to bow to authority. As an immigrant nation, we are fed up with hierarchy, and so it's the American way to distrust those who set themselves up as authorities. It's the American way to reject authority.

A final reason for the rejection of science is the growing belief in polling, the growing belief in the wisdom of crowds. Americans seem to have decided it doesn't take any special ability to pick apart climate science or evolution, and so they don't respect well-trained scientists. They do, however, respect the smarts of the ordinary guy, but there's a lot of difference in their minds between the ordinary guy and the elitist. Polls, therefore, are a trustworthy barometer for most any important issue.

My business, in contrast to most consultants in personal development, is heavily research oriented. I emphasize behaviors from the standpoint of research, challenge conventional wisdom, and am quick to pooh-pooh a client's ideas when they won't stand up to scrutiny. I reject client ideas with a smile and a laugh, but I do it. That's part of our initial social contract. Clients know my reputation and I suspect there's quite a bit of self-selection of my services as a result. Indeed, occasionally a client will ask whether an idea I'm propounding has a research basis. My hope, for their sake, is that they continue to ask that question, and that evidence-based management and behavior becomes their modus operandi. Good theory makes for good practice which makes for good profit. And when it doesn't, the thoughtful person can explain that failure from a research perspective.

April 03, 2010

Forget everything you think you know about genes, talent, and intelligence. In recent years, a mountain of scientific evidence has emerged suggesting a completely new paradigm: not talent scarcity, but latent talent abundance.

--David Shenk, The Genius in All of Us

I intend to keep printing these reminders because the conventional knowledge, the very opposite of this quote, is so deeply ingrained within our psyches that 95% of the population remains either unaware or unwilling to believe the research.

A part of this rejection of even a mountain of scientific evidence is based upon the very human and very selective exposure in which we all participate. Often, that selective exposure causes us to dismiss as fake the evidence that doesn't jibe with our views.

But dismissing this highly important research is also dismissing huge opportunities for us as workers and as family members. Because the implications of that are that we all--with a lot of hard work--can create a far bigger niche in life than we once thought. Indeed, the research, as Shenk writes, shows us that all of us can have a much more enriching life.

December 11, 2009

"When hearing something unusual, do not pre-emptively reject it, for that would be folly. Indeed, horrible things may be true, and familiar and praised things may prove to be lies. Truth is truth unto itself, not because people say it is."

November 23, 2009

Reading a science article in this morning's NYTimes magazine, I was struck by how much new and useful information on stress relief is available today. More than 25 years ago I taught an occasional night school course on stress management. At that time we knew a lot about biofeedback, the skills of emotion management and how our perceptions play a huge role in building or deescalating personal stress. I knew that I usually felt stress in my gut first, often long before I could name it. That, of course, made it possible for me to start managing my stress before it built up. I also knew that if I was on a creative jag and had come to a dead-end, there were several basic options: sleep, exercise and good nutrition.

For example, project development can be stressful. My modus operandi has been habituated over the years. When working on a project, I usually dig up as much data as possible and start writing. Usually the act of writing surfaces all kinds of issues, makes mental connections, offers other suggestions, and pushes me to dig up further data. The rule is obvious: stop thinking and planning and just start writing.

But sometimes the ideas won't come. When that happens, I set the material aside, go about my business, and shortly before bedtime, run over the data and material again for 30 minutes or so, and then hit the sack. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, either in the middle of the nite or when I wake in the morning, the issues have clarified themselves--and resolved my stress. Scientists tell us that though the body is asleep, the brain is busily making connections. And that's my experience.

I've also learned from practice that no matter how stressed I am about business issues, my project work or even personal or family issues, exercise is key to relieving that stress. I am constantly amazed at how effective a brisk walk of 30 minutes to an hour (I can no longer jog because of an idiopathic neuropathy) can clear out the mind, suggest resolutions and enliven me.

Scientists have known for sometime that exercise stimulates the creation of new brain cells as well as enhances the connections of those brain cells. In effect, exercise remodels the brain, enabling us to deal more effectively with stress. Cool, eh?

The Times article reported on fascinating findings by researchers at Princeton University. As I noted previously, scientists have been aware that exercise stimulates the creation of new brain cells, but not how that took place. In the research, the scientists permitted one group of rats to run, but the other group were not permitted to exercise. Then all of the rats were placed in cold water, requiring them to swim, which rats don't like to do. Afterward they looked at the brains. What they found was that swimming activated neurons in both sets of rats. However, the brains of the rats that had been on the exercise regimen were less likely to bear the marks of stress. Generally, they remained quiet. What they concluded was that the rats that had been running had developed brain cells that essentially buffered those rats from stress.

In a related study at the University of Colorado, rats that had run for several weeks . . were less anxious and helpless despite the stress placed upon them.

The lesson is clear. Don't quit your running (or in my case, brisk walking). You won't get the magical reduction of stress after your first jog if you haven't been running. But the molecular and biochemical changes will begin. As I found out years ago, eventually the changes become profound.

Successful careers are not built merely upon the so-called work skills, but also upon good nutrition, regular sleep, and REGULAR EXERCISE.